fingering - minor7b5?

I'm running into this chord a lot in some simple jazz standards I'm trying to learn, and find this change surprisingly difficult.

The voicing I think I would most often use is something like (Am7b5):

5x554x

After experimenting a bit, it seems fastest to grab the A note on the E string with my thumb, and handle the other notes as I would an Am in open position. But don't always mute the A string cleanly... Wondering how others handle this chord. Thx

I'm running into this chord a lot in some simple jazz standards I'm trying to learn, and find this change surprisingly difficult.

The voicing I think I would most often use is something like (Am7b5):

5x554x

After experimenting a bit, it seems fastest to grab the A note on the E string with my thumb, and handle the other notes as I would an Am in open position. But don't always mute the A string cleanly... Wondering how others handle this chord. Thx

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I use several ways, sort of depends on the situation, but mostly these two:

5x554x
for me: root (A) w/ middle, then ring (G) , pinky (C) and index hits the Eb on the B string. That's the easiest way for me to grab that voicing. The muting of the A string seems to take care of itself, or at least it's pretty easy w/ your middle finger right over that string.

I use this voicing a lot, with the root on the A string, with the middle finger holding the root
E-7b5: x 7 x 7 8 6 (x E x D G Bb).

I'm running into this chord a lot in some simple jazz standards I'm trying to learn, and find this change surprisingly difficult.

The voicing I think I would most often use is something like (Am7b5):

5x554x

After experimenting a bit, it seems fastest to grab the A note on the E string with my thumb, and handle the other notes as I would an Am in open position. But don't always mute the A string cleanly... Wondering how others handle this chord. Thx

I use my thumb when playing the voicing in the OP. Keep in mind you don't need to play the b5, as long as you omit the 5th altogether, especially if you're chomping rhythm guitar. This is fine in a lot of contexts:

5 x 5 5 x x

I also like this a lot

x x 7 5 4 x

as it makes it easy to do things like this, leading to D7:

1)x
2)4-4-4-4
3)5-5-5-5
4)7-6-5-4
5)x
6)x

Often the melody will contain the 4th, which adds another tension against the b5th. I like these quartal sounds:

1)x
2)x
3)7
4)7
5)6
6)x

or

1)x
2)8
3)7
4)7
5)6
6)x

And you can slide either up a minor third for your D7 chord (I've resolved to Gmin6/9)-

1)x----
2)10--10
3)10--7
4)10--8
5)9---7
6)x---x

Now if you look at that last Gmin voicing it's basically an Emin7b5 with a 4th on top. For the most part a min7b5 chord is interchangeable with a min6 chord a minor third up. Here's another common ii-V move with that last shape (Emin A7 Dmin):

guitarjazz -- I'm uncertain? I'm not even sure I understand the question, exactly.

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Should have said ' How many other harmonic functions can the notes in that chord be used for?'
In other words ACEbG are the notes contained a several different chords and functions. Rearranged them(the notes), put other bass notes below them and see what you come up with.

Ami7b5 isn't a sub for Cmi6. The same exact four notes spell both chords. If I use ACEbG four the first four bars of an F blues, I'm not using the Ami7b5 to 'sub' for anything. The same four notes are the 35b79 of F9. Thinking about them related to Ami7b5, at least in terms of chord progression is just muddying up the water.

I'm running into this chord a lot in some simple jazz standards I'm trying to learn, and find this change surprisingly difficult.

The voicing I think I would most often use is something like (Am7b5):

5x554x

After experimenting a bit, it seems fastest to grab the A note on the E string with my thumb, and handle the other notes as I would an Am in open position. But don't always mute the A string cleanly... Wondering how others handle this chord. Thx

Click to expand...

If you're going to use the 5x554x fingering, you might want to also get comfortable with a couple smaller versions of it like 5x58xx or just 5xx54x so you can gab it faster when things are moving to quickly. You lose the 7th with those but they can be much easier to play.

Ami7b5 isn't a sub for Cmi6. The same exact four notes spell both chords. If I use ACEbG four the first four bars of an F blues, I'm not using the Ami7b5 to 'sub' for anything. The same four notes are the 35b79 of F9. Thinking about them related to Ami7b5, at least in terms of chord progression is just muddying up the water.

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Gotta disagree with you, although I usually don't. When I play Arps of F7 I like to think of the Family of Four : F7, Am7b5, Cmin6/7, Ebmaj7

Gotta disagree with you, although I usually don't. When I play Arps of F7 I like to think of the Family of Four : F7, Am7b5, Cmin6/7, Ebmaj7

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Love that family! That's a cool way to look at harmonic extensions of F7. I still don't think of those as substitutions for F7. The F7 genre encompasses the whole fam damily.
When I think Am7b5 , 97.5% it's in the context of a minor ii-V7 moving to G minor. My viewpoint is skewed by a concept that I got from a Joe Pass workshop back in 1981. Joe said there three kinds of chords, major, minor, and seventh and that virtually all chords fit into those categories. If you look at his chord book you'll notice that he deliberately didn't name the chords but rather group them according to their harmonic genre. So in his 'major' section (all some kind of C major genre chord colors) he has what could be analyzed as an Emi7 chord. He's not substituting an Emi7 for a C major, he's looking at all the harmonic color possibilities (13579#11, 13) and choosing voicings that work well with melody notes. Bear in mind his imprint on chord-melody playing.
The back half of his chord book has a slew of chord substitution examples that involve elaborating on the harmonic movement. The first example is a two bar Dmi vamp. Then he shows a number of ways, through substitution, of arriving at Dmi rather than sitting on Dmi.